Four years on from dissolution of the group in which he had made his name, former Eagles drummer/lead vocalist/principal lyricist Don Henley used the opportunity of his second album BUILDING THE PERFECT BEAST (November 1984) to offer interesting insight into how he viewed himself and more pertinently, where America stood as the mid-years of the decade approached.
Having established his solo artist credentials with the excellent ‘I Can’t Stand Still‘ (1982), Henley followed up two years later with an accomplished ten song set including two songs by co-producer Danny Kortchmar (Greg Ladanyi also taking a production credit) who once again served as musical director.
In his own lyrics Henley offered an emotive, at times wry perspective on both personal and political issues – such observations set to music whose synth-laden, Linn-drum stylings gave the album its conscientious, contemporary feel.
Boasting an array of star name musician guests (Lindsey Buckingham, Randy Newman, two members of Toto, three Heartbreakers on leave from Tom Petty duty, along with backing vocal invitees Sam Moore, Belinda Carlisle, Patty Smyth and JD Souther), Henley and Kortchmar are clear-minded in what they are aiming for, the record never less than convincing and assured.
Their intentions are helped in no small way by having ‘The Boys of Summer‘ to open the album. This brilliant songwriting collaboration between Henley and Heartbreaker guitarist Mike Campbell in essence deals with handling nostalgia in a mature way – while also serving as an outstanding rock song of the 1980s.
Presented with such a beguiling start, there was always the danger what follows would fail in doing justice to the skyscraper track which sets the ball rolling.
Not so. Henley frequently maintains his standing, that began in the Eagles, as a first-rate wordsmith by creating any number of vivid images, Kortchmar coming up with inventive arrangements for his role in their writing partnership.
Indeed, they had so much top draw material to hand an utterly sublime Henley composition entitled ‘A Month of Sundays‘ (his words a magnificent depiction of the plight of American farmers in an age of rampant consumerism), did not make the final cut when it came to compiling the vinyl album. Room was made for inclusion on the cassette and cd version of ‘Building the Perfect Beast‘ while it was also found on the B-side of ‘The Boys of Summer‘ 45, yet it still seems inexplicable this serene piano ballad failed to surface on the L.P. to begin with.
The opening cut originated, in terms of melody, as a heady electric guitar/synthesizer cocktail mixed up by Campbell. When it failed to arouse interest in Petty at sessions that would result in his 1985 ‘Southern Accents‘ release, it was offered to 37-year-old Texan Henley – who apparently was so taken by what he heard, spent hours driving around small coastal towns of Southern California in order to conjure a suitable lyric, equating some of the structural disrepair on view with that of a love affair in ruins:
‘Nobody on the road/Nobody on the beach/I feel it in the air/The summer’s out of reach/Empty lake, empty streets/The sun goes down alone/I’m driving by your house/Though I know you’re not home.’
Over the sympathetic string synthesizer patterns and incisive electric guitar breaks Campbell weaves into the mix, the protagonist (Henley said to have found inspiration in the Dylan Thomas poem ‘I see the boys of summer‘), cannot stop himself from looking back ruefully into the past:
‘I never will forget those nights/I wonder if it was a dream/Remember how you made me crazy?/Remember how I made you scream.’
But he knows the decision in regard to continuing the relationship is beyond his control, he unwilling to let go, ‘I can tell you my love for you will still be strong/After the boys of summer have gone‘ even though his affections are now in danger of being vain.
As if to emphasise the sense of bewilderment at how events have unfolded, he is taken by a striking image encapsulating his fear of the past having no bearing on the present. Yet the narrator, despite recognising the irony of what has just been seen, is not the only one seemingly unsure of how to reconcile then and now:
‘Out on the road today, I saw a DEADHEAD sticker on a Cadillac/A little voice inside my head said, “Don’t look back. You can never look back”
What so intrigued Henley during an episode he witnessed on Highway 405 in California, was seeing allegiance to the Grateful Dead (‘Deadheads‘ the collective term for their fan base), a band synonymous with the counter-culture, being expressed through a bumper sticker on a vehicle associated with the upper middle classes – the romance at the centre of the piece along with the radical 60s ideals espoused by (some) followers of the Dead, each compromised by time.
Even then Henley has one more decisive line to deliver, conjuring the woman all but lost with a yearning that even incorporates the sunglasses she wears, (‘I can see you/Your brown skin shinin’ in the sun/You got that hair slicked back and those Wayfarers on‘). Due to a vocal performance of aching intensity Henley won a Grammy at the 1985 award ceremony, this success part of a double triumph that included winning in the best video category (an atmospheric affair shot in black and white) – ‘The Boys of Summer‘ also providing him with a richly deserved hit single on both sides of the Atlantic.
He is found in philosophical mood in relation to matters of the heart on two other songs on the first side, ‘You Can’t Make Love‘ (featuring Buckingham on guitar and harmony vocals), an engaging mid-tempo cut asserting how feelings and emotions cannot be forced, ‘You can buy her diamonds/You can go out in style/You can make a promise, you can walk down the aisle/You can make a life for her that fits like a glove/But/You can’ t make love’.
Side one closer ‘Not Enough Love in the World‘ (for which Heartbreaker keyboard ace Ben Tench receives one of his two co-write credits), goes even deeper in contemplating how a relationship finally came to grief, failure put down to inhibiting incompatibility:
‘I was either standing in your shadow or blocking your light/Though I kept on trying, I could not make it right/For you, girl/There’s just not enough love in the world.’
The layered keyboards provide an effective base for this sophisticated soft rock track with subtle soul overtones, Henley ruminating on the difficulty of sustaining intimacy against the backdrop of outside interest:
‘Oh darlin’, this is still a shady little town/And sometimes it’s so hard to smile/For the world, for the camera, and still have something left/You don’t have to prove nothin’ to nobody, just take good care of yourself.’
Levity on side one comes in the form of ‘Man with a Mission‘ old pal Souther assisting Henley and Kortchmar in the writing of a busy, fast-paced rock track of similar boisterous hue to ‘Johnny Can’t Read‘ from ‘I Can’t Stand Still.’
Through the shortest track on the record and the only one coming in at under three minutes, Henley, in a frantic voice, conveys how he is being shunned by the object of his desires, ‘Even though I’m tryin’ every trick in the book/You give me drop dead (drop dead), drop dead looks/You the finest woman that I’ve ever seen/Why you wanna be so mean?’
With a teenage Charlie Sexton contributing electric guitar and Carlisle adding harmonies, it serves as likeable bluster in offering a nice change of pace, particularly as it precedes ‘You’re Not Drinking Enough.’ The first of two Kortchmar penned pieces is a soulful, heartbreak lament that describes the plight of a lovelorn figure besieged by pitiful reminiscences of a woman who has cast him aside, ‘You’re not drinkin’ enough to wash away old memories/And there ain’t enough whiskey in Texas to keep you from beggin’/ Please/Please, please.’
Toto compadres David Paich (piano) and Steve Porcaro (synthesizer) feature among the players with Henley receiving stellar vocal support from Moore, one half of renowned R&B duo Sam and Dave.
Paich (synthesizer) and Porcaro (programming) are also present on ‘All She Wants to Do Is Dance‘, Kortchmar with his other sole composition taking some pithy potshots at American foreign policy. The female on who the song is centred, whose intention it is to dance, is surrounded by all manner of unsavoury characters to whom the U.S. government is either hostile or hospitable depending on how their politics are viewed in Washington.
Across the board they all seem disreputable in the extreme. Set against a pulsing backing track, in the end Kortchmar, through the jocular vocal of Henley, has U.S. personnel making a hasty retreat after being rumbled for playing both sides against each other:
‘Well, we barely made the airport/For the last plane out/As we taxied down the runway/I could hear the people shout/They said “Don’t come back here Yankee’/But if I ever do/I’ll bring more money/’Cause all she wants to do is dance.‘
Side two opens with the intriguing title track, Henley casting his gaze on how mankind is tampering with DNA to prolong human existence as long as possible, creating a scenario where man is his own worst enemy – this unusual subject matter for a rock song delivered against a battery of coursing synthesizers, tribal drums and slick electric guitar incursions.
The opening line acknowledges humanity has reached an exalted level of existence, while expressing concern more has not been learned along the way:
‘The power of reason/The top of the heap/We’re the ones who can kill the things we don’t eat.‘
The subtext to the points Henley endeavors to make, not without recourse to dry humour, is that amidst the technological advances the world needs to stop and take a breath, at least until establishing whether progress is worth the recklessness involved. Added to unrelenting personal ambition, the beast (us) is growing more powerful, but also more destructive.
So great have been advancements in technology the possibility has been raised of human beings living for an eternity, something Henley alludes to in referencing a Greek god who did just that – but with delightful sarcasm the writer straight away spots a problem with eternal life:
‘Ever since we crawled out of the ocean/And stood upright on the land/There are some things that we just don’t understand/Relieve all pain and suffering/And lift us out of the dark/Turn us all into Methuselah/But where are we gonna park?‘
In part a critique of the endless pursuit of innovation on the part of man and also a cautionary tale on what the consequences of unchecked striving might be, Henley, in wrapping things, up strikes a cautious, yet cursory note, human kind for all its fantastical aspirations still capable of being fallible:
‘All the way to Malibu from the Land of the Talking Drum/Just look how far/Look how far we’ve come.’
On the equally engrossing ‘Sunset Grill‘ Henley invites the listener to a downtown diner in order to observe the vagaries of everyday life. Outside the working girls pass by beneath an auburn sky while inside an old man from the ‘old world‘ calls his customers by name.
The soulful synthesizer arrangement (for which Newman receives credit, Heartbreaker Tench a co-write and keyboard contributor), is subsequently fattened up with horns and synth-guitar part from Kortchmar to provide Henley the ideal platform to air his observations on the isolation felt by many among the urban sprawl:
‘You see a lot more meanness in the city/It’s the kind that eats you up inside/Hard to come away with anything that feels like dignity/Hard to get home with any pride/These days a man makes you somethin’/And you never see his face/But there is no hiding place.’
Against the lush contours of the track it is somewhat disconcerting to hear him state, ‘Respectable little murders pay/They get more respectable every day,’ yet for all the chaos in the city outside, within the walls of the Sunset Grill the patrons, despite their individual frailties and foibles, find connection with one other – much like those described in ‘The French Inhaler‘ a brilliant depiction by Warren Zevon of sad cases who frequent a late-night L.A. loser bar, Henley using similar bittersweet sentiments in regard to those seeking solace:
‘What would we do without all these jerks anyway?/Besides, all our friends are here.‘
Stan Lynch, drummer of Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, takes a songwriting credit on the surging rocker, ‘Drivin’ With Your Eyes Closed‘. Kortchmar (guitars, keyboards, bass, percussion) handles most of the instrumentation as Henley uses the title as a metaphor for going through life without seeing the world beyond – blind navigation (‘Drivin’ with your eyes closed/You’re gonna hit somethin’/’But that’s the way it goes‘), leading to an inevitable consequence.
When it comes to succeeding there is acceptance different motivations prevail, ‘Sometimes it’s a country/Sometimes it’s a girl/You know, everybody got to have a purpose in this world‘, the hypnotic synth motifs and seductive female background vocals creating a sassy mix of fatalism and fun.
The album comes to a close with the uplifting ‘Land of the Living‘, Henley writing a touching tribute to the attributes his lover has been blessed with. Kortchmar concocts a sweeping melody that belies the often clinical nature of music emanating from electronic keyboards and programmed drums:
‘We got to do what we can about all this pain and sorrow/But try to live just a little/We could all be gone tomorrow/When I look at you girl, my heart rejoices/You taught me somethin’/Considering the choices.’
It is an affirming, upbeat way to end a record both articulate and profound, testament to the fact that in the right hands popular music retained the capacity to offer informed discourse as well as entertain, Henley creating an L.P. crammed with original thought.
Indeed, through a year when there were no new releases from fellow L.A. word-wizards Jackson Browne, Tom Waits, Newman and Zevon, ‘Building the Perfect Beast‘ contained phrases, couplets and scenescapes any one of them would have been happy to conjure.
On release ‘Building the Perfect Beast‘ became a worldwide bestseller and in the U.S. alone achieved platinum status thrice over. Response from the music press was overwhelmingly favourable, Rolling Stone, in somewhat confusing manner awarding the album four and a half stars (out of five), half a star presumably docked due to Henley being a former-Eagle – a band for whom the magazine had rarely hidden their disdain.
Even long-time Eagles-enemy, noted rock scribe Robert Christgau weighed in with a positive review, judging Henley for what he was currently achieving rather than perceived shortcomings of yore – embracing perhaps a theme found in ‘The Boys of Summer‘ of the past being a chapter that exists, but cannot be changed.
DON HENLEY – BUILDING THE PERFECT BEAST (Released November 19 1984):
The Boys of Summer/You Can’t Make Love/Man With a Mission/You’re Not Drinking Enough/Not Enough Love in the World/Building the Perfect Beast/All She Wants to Do Is Dance/Sunset Grill/Drivin’ with Your Eyes Closed/Land of the Living;
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